Interviews

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

Co-Creator Ed Boon extrapolates on the final battle between good and evil. First details, screens and movies.

February 24, 2006 - Given the popularity of the long-running Mortal Kombat series, nobody would dare think that Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Midway's upcoming fighter for Xbox and PS2, would be the final game in the franchise. And yet...Armageddon does have that certain ring to it. The way co-creator Ed Boon talks about Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, with words like "final chapter" and "final battle between good and evil," one really does begin to wonder.

That's why we spoke with the always-friendly Boon this week about the follow-up to 2004's Mortal Kombat: Deception. Boon, who co-created the arcade fighter in the early 1990s with Jon Tobias, has continued on with the series, successfully taking the 2D sprite-based series to polygonal 3D, and recently creating the popular offshoot, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

IGN: Following Mortal Kombat: Deception, many critics and fans felt that there was nothing more that could be done with the series. If you're a fan who's tired of Mortal Kombat yet wants something new and fresh from the series, how would you try to persuade them that Mortal Kombat Armageddon is worth their while?

Ed Boon: One thing about the MK series is that we are not afraid to make big changes and additions to our games. I really believe it is one of the reasons we still consistently out-sell our fighting game competitors. ANY series that keeps releasing the same game over and over will eventually sell fewer and fewer units.

Fight another player or delve into the new Konquest mode.

IGN: Mortal Kombat Deception was filled with mini-games, chess, puzzle combat, and tons of unlockables. How did fans react to these additions, and will they make a return in Mortal Kombat Armageddon?

Ed: The response to all the "diversions" (as I like to call them) was very positive. In addition to the interactive backgrounds, death traps and the new breaker move, it really helped further distinguish us from other fighting series that were simply adding a couple of characters and incrementing the number in their title. Mortal Kombat has always had secret features and unlockables and Armageddon will not remove those features….and YES, there will be another new diversion in Armageddon as well.

IGN: What do you mean by "Armageddon?" Is this really the final battle between good and evil? Does this mean this is the last Mortal Kombat as we know it? Will you explain?

Ed: Armageddon does imply "The End" in a few ways. It is the end of MK on this generation of consoles. It also is the final battle between all the good and evil characters in the MK universe. We really want to close this chapter of Mortal Kombat.

Every hero and villian from the 60-plus character library of Kortal Kombat is playable in MK Armageddon.

IGN: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon has the biggest roster of the series ever, which means we have, what, 30-plus characters? In what context do all these characters coming together make sense from a story standpoint?

Ed: The roster is a lot bigger than 30 characters. It's actually a lot closer to 60 characters. Since the story really ties up all the loose ends from Mortal Kombat 1 all the way to Deception, we want to include everyone. Plus, since this final chapter is all about the final epic battle we need to explain what happens to EVERYONE, which means leaving no stone unturned.

IGN: Also, from a technical standpoint, are there any complications or difficulties you had to overcome to get all of these characters to fight one another? Do different character sizes or fighting styles make a difference from a design or programming standpoint?

Ed: Absolutely. We are going to be including all the boss characters from MK's past. Goro, Shao Kahn, even Motaro!! Some of these characters are HUGE and have never been playable characters before. So we will need to make sure they are not too powerful or un-fun to play. We are doing extensive testing on them against every single other character in the game to make sure they are fair and fun to play.

IGN: What create-a-player modes have you seen in previous games that you've liked? And which one did you base Mortal Kombat: Armageddon on, if any? How exactly does it work? Can you explain how the feature is robust and deep?

Ed: There have been a number of create-a-character modes in various wrestling, boxing and golf games. They all have the standard "dress-your-fighter" functionality with a number of different costume items to select. We really didn't base MK on of any particular one but we did a good amount of research and wanted to make sure we did more than they did. For example, we thought it was important to let players define their attacks as well as the look of their fighters. Armageddon lets you define your fighting styles, right down to the attack associated with each button. Another thing we knew was important was to let players take their created fighter and go online against other created fighters. This is one of the most exciting features of our create-a-fighter mode.

Bring the heat with new punishing moves.

IGN: Fatalities have always been a significant part of the Mortal Kombat phenomenon. What kinds of new fatalities will we see in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, and can you explain how players can create their own new fatalities?

Ed: Our goal with the fatality system is to make it as interactive as possible. In all the previous MK games fatalities were triggered and then both players would just sit back and "watch the fireworks". With each new MK game we added more elaborate fatality sequences, but they've always been non-interactive. With our new Fatality system players will be stringing together "mini-fatalities" (in whatever order they want) to form their own "custom fatality". Each character will have a larger number of "mini-fatality" moves that will each require a button sequence to trigger. Players can decide which fatalities they want to string together to form their own custom fatality. The challenge will be that every "mini-fatality" will require a faster button sequence than the previous. So really good players will be able to string together longer fatalities and customize them as long as they are fast enough to enter the button sequence for each step.

Kreate your own karacter and then develop your own fatality to Konfuse them.

IGN: Mortal Kombat: Deception, technically, was a sound game. The framerate was solid, the controls were good (although MK has always been rather mechanical), and from a visual standpoint, it was attractive. Given that these systems are four and five years old now, how are you able to improve the engines from a visual standpoint to make the games look better? What tricks do your programmers have left?

Ed: Every game we make always runs into the inevitable point where we have to stop adding features because of time limitations. MK Deception was no exception, upon further inspection (sorry, I couldn't resist). Our programming team has always added new graphical enhancements to our display engine with each new title including Armageddon. Our new backgrounds are more multi-leveled, more interactive and have more sophisticated lighting techniques than Deception did. Though more importantly, the game-play in Armageddon is better as well. With our new parry feature and air-kombat, the fights are much more varied and unpredictable. We can't wait for you to play it.

IGN: It sounds like the MK team is really going to up the ante with this newly improved online mode. What did you see in Deception that could be fixed, improved, or revamped to give players a better experience?

Ed: We have high hopes for MK Armageddon's online capabilities but we can't come out with details just yet. We'll have more on that aspect of the game soon

March 2nd, 2006

MKONLINE INTERVIEW WITH ED BOON - MIDWAY PULSE 2006

Scott Bishop - Hi, this is Scott Bishop with Mortal Kombat Online, the net's top Mortal Kombat resource at www.mortalkombatonline.com. I am here with Mortal Kombat series co-creator and project lead for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Ed Boon. How are you doing today, Ed?

Ed Boon - Doing good, thanks.

SB - Okay, so... Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. The last game in the current generation lineup. The end of the current Mortal Kombat storyline.

EB - The end of this chapter.

SB - What brought about the idea of you to end - to end this chapter of Mortal Kombat on this generation of systems? What brought about this decision to bring a close to this part of Mortal Kombat?

EB - A lot of it was kinda based on the whole idea that this is the last Mortal Kombat we're going to see on the Playstation 3, X-Box, and we really wanted to start the next kind of generation of Mortal Kombat. It's on a new system, wipe the slate in terms of the fighting mechanic, wipe the slate clean in terms of characters. Right now we have some characters we know aren't going to come back; we have certain characters we know we have to bring back. Right now we have certain features we know we have to bring back. *unintelligble* But we really want the next game to be a dramatic change in the whole Mortal Kombat universe, and in doing that there were a lot of story elements that we didn't tie up, and we're doing all of that now.

SB - A number of fans have expressed concern that they believe - they are under the impression that everybody dies. Is there - this is not necessarily the case, though, is it?

EB - No, no, it's not necessarily the case. I mean, we're going to - we may have a bunch of characters die, we may have some characters die. We're certainly not going to kill every single character off. It's kinda speculation, I guess.

SB - Mortal Kombat: Armageddon features every single Mortal Kombat character, of course except for, say, Motaro, or...

EB - He's in there.

SB - He IS in there?

EB - Yes.

SB - You heard it here first, folks. (Note: I didn't remember that his presence was announced in the IGN article. Goof on my part.) What are the challenges in balancing the gameplay for that many characters? What kind of challenges did you encounter...?

EB - The big challenges, I think, are really related to - the main ones are related to the boss characters. You have Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, the Dragon King... all of those are much bigger characters, they don't move as fast, and they're obviously not going to be doing all of these kinds of acrobatic moves that the smaller characters are. We needed to kind of give them their own strengths to compensate for the fact that they can't jump as high, and that kind of led to that situation.

SB - Now, continuing on the gameplay, I noticed you, in addition to the Breakers - I noticed Breakers in the trailer - you also have a new Parry system. What other changes can we see to the ground gameplay, such as... will we see wake-up games, where characters can choose when their characters come up?

EB - With every Mortal Kombat there's been new ideas and stuff like that. We haven't shown every new element that we're going to add ... *unintelligible* You know we're going to be adding the jumping ability that we didn't have since MK4, and we'll also add - we're going to be adding the air combo system. We're going to do pretty much all the combo moves that you do on the ground, and all of the basic features like the parry, the combo breakers, stuff like that that you can do on the ground.

SB - As far as air kombat goes, how much of an influence would you say Shaolin Monks has had on that? From where I'm standing, it looks like there was a great influence from that game.

EB - I think that in the style of the combos that you do, that certainly has been influenced by Shaolin Monks. I was working *unintelligible* the mechanics of that game. But in terms of the jumping around, that influence was really from Mortal Kombats 1, 2, and 3. We wanted people to get that basic feeling of jumping over projectiles and all the basic moves we brought back.

SB - Now, with create-a-character...

John Podlasek sits down next to Scott at this point.

SB - We're joined here by John Podlasek, who is producer of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.

EB - Podlasek. (Correcting my mangled pronounciation...)

SB - Podlasek. Mea culpa. Now...

Ed and John take this opportunity to toast each other.

SB - Let's skip over create-a-character for sec. Create-a-fatality, or fatalities in general: can we expect to see standard fatalities as in previous games in addition to create-a-fatality?

EB - Ah, no, actually. We really wanted to change the fatality system completely, and the point being that we wanted every step of the fatality to be something that the player controls. So, we're not going to have the standard fatalities where you put in a button combination and something happens. We want the player to be creative.

SB - Will specific characters be able to have, for example, signature moves in their fatalities? For example, will we see Sub-Zero freeze, or Scorpion do his hellfire, that kind of thing??

EB - Yes. Specific fatality moves will be tailor-made for specific characters.

SB - Now, what can you tell us about Konquest mode that's not been revealed just yet? We see that it's - again, a great deal of Shaolin Monks influence in it. Does it use the Shaolin Monks engine in it, or is it an extension of the previous Konquest engine?

EB - Uhm, truly, I think a lot of people compare it to Shaolin Monks simply just because it's *unintelligible* plus you're fighting with a whole bunch of enemies at the same time, and it's similar in that you're doing the *unintelligible* and punching, But it doesn't really play like Shaolin Monks. Shaolin Monks has a lot of more of the aerial kind of moves. *unintelligible* tailor made for this.

SB - Going back to characters, how many new characters can we expect to see in Armageddon?

EB - Uhm, at least one. I mean, I guess with Armageddon we really wanted to make it the big roster. The new Konquest character is unlockable. The main emphasis is going to be bringing back all the classic characters that we haven't seen like Sheeva, Fujin, and Stryker.

SB - Now, finally, this is the first game - no, this is the last game on the current generation system.

EB - Or is it? *laugh*

SB - It's the last tournament fighting game.

EB - Right.

SB - Can we expect to see 360 compatibility out of the box?

EB - For the X-Box 360?

SB - Yes.

EB - Uhm, I think we're doing everything we can for X-Box 360 support.

SB - And what can we expect to see from the other side of Mortal Kombat? For example, you're branching out - started branching out with the action/adventure games... again, Shaolin Monks. What concepts can you tell us about that you're looking at for the next Mortal Kombat game? For the next side game?

EB - The next game is actually going to be called Shaolin Monkeys, and it's kind of like ...

JP - *monkey screech*

EB - ... exactly. It's going to be like, it's Mortal Kombat in a zoo. Two monkeys escape, and they have to have a... they have the same powers as Liu Kang and Kung Lao. We're just going to basically expand on that whole story. *pauses, then laughs*

SB - ... I had to ask. For Mortal Kombat Online, this is Scott Bishop...

John screeches like a monkey again, and all three crack up.

SB - ... having more fun than we are really allowed to have. Thank you, and good night.

March 14th, 2006

Game Informer Interviews Ed Boon About Armageddon and Unchained!

Game Informer has just released a new interview with Mortal Kombat co-creator and project lead for the upcoming Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Ed Boon. In the interview, Ed discusses various things concerning MK: Armageddon; for example, he reveals another reason for doing the game on the current generation of consoles instead of the next generation. From the article:

Game Informer: When Mortal Kombat: Armageddon was announced, some people cried out because it was for the current generation of consoles. What was the reason behind going with current-gen instead of next-gen?

Ed Boon: The main thing was timing. We have always introduced Mortal Kombat games to established systems and while we’re totally jazzed about doing 360 games and doing PS3 games, our concern for doing it so early was that it would have been a launch title for PS3 and the 360 would only had been out for about a year. We really wanted a bigger install base of players. Second, the idea of doing a Mortal Kombat game with all of the characters on the next-gen would have been too much content because we already had a head start with Deadly Alliance and Deception. So we just thought to fill in all of the ones we haven’t done and do the entire roster as one of the big features in the game.

In addition, it's revealed that the more you play Armageddon, the more powerful you can make your custom character.

GI: When you are creating a character, will you have a set number of attribute points or something that you spend?

Boon: Yes, when you start off, you won’t have the ability to pick every single attack to assign on to your character. Everything that you do in the game we are trying to consolidate into one monetary system. So when you are playing the fighting game, you will be earning the same type of points as you would playing the Konquest Mode or any of the other modes in the game. With that currency, you can go back and purchase different kinds of moves and special attacks and keep building your character visually and skillfully.

GI: So the more you play, the more beefy you can make your fighter?

Boon: Exactly.

The discussion also came around to Mortal Kombat: Unchained, which was only touched on briefly, but it was revealed the game was not being developed in-house. Again, from the article:

GI: I know you’re a fan of the PSP and now you have Unchained coming out. What was it like working with that hardware?

Boon: Well Unchained was developed in Santa Monica by a company called Climax. So we didn’t develop the game here in Chicago but there were a lot of issues that we wanted to address. We really wanted to keep the framerate very high. So we went in there and helped them optimize their code and the Wi-Fi linking - we really wanted to make sure that was tight. We did have a lot more exposure to the hardware than we normally would have when working with a third party, but the main work was done by Climax.

The interview also touches upon create-a-fatality, Konquest mode, and veers off to other subjects like other genres Ed would want to try and develop for, his thoughts on fighting games on the Nintendo Revolution controller, and what he hopes to see in the next generation. To read the interview in its entirety, click here.

Our thanks to forum member Mortalman for the heads-up on this new interview!

March 28th, 2006

Kamidogu interviews Steve Beran

Kamidogu recently had the opportunity of interviewing Mortal Kombat Armageddon's lead character artist, Steve Beran. In the interview, Beran describes his role in the Mortal Kombat team, and comments on the challenges involved in creating the greatest Mortal Kombat game ever.

Kamidogu: As lead character artist at Midway, what does your role in the development of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon entail?

Steve Beran: As lead character artist I am responsible for overseeing the design and production of all of the characters that will appear in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.

Kamidogu: Mortal Kombat has certainly come a long way in terms of costume design since Deadly Alliance. From where do you receive your inspiration and ideas and how do you go about revamping an old character's appearance?

Beran: Mortal Kombat costume ideas are inspired by action figures, comic books, and movies. Star Wars has always been a big influence for me in terms of characters and how their costumes look.

Revamping an old character is always a fun challenge. It gives the character designer a chance to introduce a fresh look to an already established character. You do have to put some boundaries on your designs though because if you make the character look drastically different players will have a hard time recognizing the character. Generally when we remake an old character we focus on making the primary costume the most different and make the secondary costume the one that players are the most familiar with.

Kamidogu: A number of returning characters have been absent from the series for some 10 years and have never been introduced into the 3D world. What were the biggest challenges involved in bringing them back?

Beran: Redesigning and modeling old 2D characters like Sektor, Sheeva, and Rain is always fun. The challenges lie with the bigger characters. Since every character is playable in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon we had to be more conscious of scale and how these big guys interacted with the more "normal human" type of character. If a character is too big he won't be fun to play with or against so balancing is always a big challenge for our team.

Kamidogu: Without a doubt Stryker is one of the least popular Mortal Kombat characters of all time. How did you approach his redesign and that of the other less favored characters to change players' perceptions?

Beran: HAHA...poor Stryker. He was never a fan favorite. Yeah, needless to say, redesigning Stryker was a challenge. For Mortal Kombat: Armageddon we decided to give him a darker, more hi tech look. He is now much more serious and contemporary looking. I'm hoping his new look and new moves will change players opinions of Stryker.

Kamidogu: With only 2 fighting styles per character, will each style be more focused on than in previous games? Also, will each character have their own unique fighting styles or will there be some sharing styles?

Beran: With such a large selection of characters we are going to try to make their styles as different as possible, though a few characters might share a style.

Kamidogu: Air kombat is an interesting new concept that will alter the way players approach battle. What compensations have you made for larger characters such as Motaro and The Dragon King who have less agility and speed than others?

Beran: Air Kombat is one of my favorite things in Armageddon. The big players will NOT be flipping and doing all that acrobatic stuff...they will be stronger GROUND guys but not have all the air kombat stuff.

Kamidogu: From the myriad of interviews and previews of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon released to the public there has been a notable presence of a number of classic arenas such as Goro's Lair, Kahn's Arena and The Subway. How many more classic arenas can fans expect to see in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon?

Beran: Besides introducing many new MK arenas, there are a lot of classic fighting arenas in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. My favorite background remake is The Wastelands from MK2. I always liked The Wastelands and this new 3D version introduces a very cool new deathtrap.

Kamidogu: How does Mortal Kombat: Armageddon's Konquest mode compare with its equivalent in Deception? Will your character traverse through different realms completing side missions and training lessons? If so, will we see the introduction of new and exciting realms? What role will this new hero play in the overall Mortal Kombat story?

Beran: I am extremely excited about the Konquest mode in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon's Konquest is so vast that it could really be its own stand alone game.

We completely re-thought this incarnation of Konquest. First off, we really wanted to make Konquest look better. We focused on making the backgrounds much more detailed and lush. You will see areas of the Mortal Kombat Universe that you have never seen before.

The characters models look much better as well due to higher texture and polygon budgets. The final look is outstanding.

I don't want to give too much of the story away but I can definitely say the storyline in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is much more involved than in prior Konquests. We removed a lot of the wacky side missions and focused more on action and giving the game a more cinematic feel.